Letters be thankful
It was the summer before school, Harry was going to be twelve, when Harry got a letter. A weird letter, on old-fashioned paper, addressed in green ink, with no stamp, and a blob of wax on the back to close it.
Aunt Petunia scowled at the letter.
"You're going to boarding school in Scotland, your parents organised it" said Aunt Petunia.
Harry was rather amazed at that, he hadn't even opened the letter yet. He held the letter in his hands, not sure what to do.
Uncle Vernon looked furious and stormed out of the house.
Harry opened the letter.
"Hogs school for witchcraft and wizardry ?" asked Harry.
"You mother, my sister, was ... was a Witch. You've got it from them, I suppose" said Aunt Petunia. "You're… a wizard I suppose. Someone will come from the school to take you to get your school things," she added.
"Why's Harry going to boarding school in Scotland" said Dudley "I only get to go to Smeltings."
"It's very cold and there's no electricity, Dudders" said Aunt Petunia.
"No electricity,... Ha ha!" said Dudley "No computer games, no TV, no … what a dump. Smeltings is much better." Harry blanched, it sounded very cold. Scotland was a long way north. Practically in Norway, he was fairly sure.
Mr Moody came to see him on his birthday, in his raincoat, suit and bowler, like he did every year. Harry waited in the sitting room.
"Potter" said Mr Moody, clonking as he walked in. "You're old enough to go to Hogwarts now."
Harry blinked "You know about magic, sir?" asked Harry nervously.
Mr Moody drew a conductors baton out of his left sleeve and waved it. Mr Moody's raincoat just suddenly was a grey cloak made of leather, patched and hooked around his neck with a silver chain; his suit was gone, replaced with a sort of dress made of brownish cloth. Harry couldn't help staring at Mr Moody's cane; which was now a sort of crutch made of twisted natural wood. And the reason for the cruthc was clearly Mr Moody's false foot, which no longer looked like a shoe and a osrt of normal leh, it was not a carved wooden claw; which Harry thought probably accounted forhte clonk noise as Mr Moody walked.
"You're due to get your things for school, Potter" said Mr Moody "I'll take you. Don't stray, I'm your security detail."
"Security?" asked Harry.
"Well the buggers that killed your parents didn't all go to prison" said Mr Moody "Don't worry, if we're attacked, they'll live to regret it, unless we get lucky."
"Attacked" squeaked Harry.
"You're more likely to be mobbed by fans" admitted Mr Moody.
"Fans?" asked Harry, utterly confused.
"The bas – perso that killed your parents, he was the leader of some terrorists." said Mr Moody "He died trying to kill you. You know this, right?"
"Er, no" admitted Harry.
"Shit" swore Mr Moody. "What do you know?"
"Uncle Vernon said my parents died in a car accident." said Harry. Moody just shook his head.
"I don't think they even had a car" said Mr Moody.
"No car?" asked Harry.
"Well, witches and wizards like us, don't need cars." said Mr Moody.
"We don't?" asked Harry.
"Course not" said Mr Moody "We're going shopping, to Diagon Alley. Best shopping in England. Come out the back door, we can leave from the back yard."
"Back yard?" asked Harry.
"Out of sight. You know about the statute, right?" asked Mr Moody.
Harry shook his head.
"Bollocks" swore Mr Moody "The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, sixteen-ninety two. Makes it the law that wizards like us keep magic secret from muggles."
Harry frowned.
"What's a muggle?" asked Harry
"Non magical people… the Americans call them nomaj's." said Mr Moody. "The ones that raised you can know, obviously. No doing magic where people can see, and for you, the Decree for the reasonable restriction of underage sorcery means no magic out of school till you're seventeen."
"I don't know any magic" admitted Harry.
"You'll learn" said Mr Moody "Let's go outside. We'll meet Minerva McGonagall at Diagon Alley, she's a teacher at Hogwarts and she can answer questions."
Mr Moody stood on the back porch held out his arm "Hold on tight and try not to vomit."
Harry clung to Mr Moody's arm, then, instead of them flying off or something, there was a sudden crushing sensation and utter darkness and cold, and Harry's eyes pressed into his head. His eardrums nearly burst and then it suddenly stopped. Harry was standing, shakily on a cobbled street, in a tiny alleyway that was lined on both sides with crazy shops that leaned over and nearly shut out the light.
In front of Harry, was a woman in a green dress and over-dress thing, and a pointy black hat, a lot like… a witches hat. She wore octagonal glasses and was looking at Harry sternly.
"Alastair, is that – " she asked, and that was when Harry vomited on her black boots.
Apparently she could just wave her wand and vanish the vomit.
"Have you never apparated before, Mr Potter?" she asked.
Harry shook his head.
"Alastair, you could have taken the knight bus" said Ms McGonagall.
"Apparation was safer." said Mr Moody.
"You made the boy ill" said Ms McGonagall.
-==0==-
Harry sat on the Hogwarts Express in his best clothes. His second best clothes were in his odd looking school trunk, along with the weird uniform robes. And the stupid hat. There were a suspiciously large number of warm garments making up the school uniform.
Aunt Petunia had told him, as he got his trunk on a trolley "Oh, and the trip takes eight hours. If you don't have their kind of money, you'll go hungry." She seemed to be enjoying the idea of Harry going hungry. Uncle Vernon had laughed.
Harry knew something Aunt Petunia didn't. In his trunk was his money-bag, and it had loads of Wizarding money. The really strict old Scottish teacher … MacGoogle Harry thought, had made a dismissive "phhht!" noise when Harry asked if he should put the money he had left over back in the bank.
-==0==-
Ron Weasley looked into the train compartment; There was a black haired boy with glasses whose hair stuck up like a birds nest, in really tidy new clothes with stupid looking new shoes on. He looked like one of those people who looked down on Ron and his family for having second-hand things. Ron went to the next compartment.
-==0==-
Much later, a girl with really big brown frizzy hair barged into the compartment where Harry was eating sweets. More than he'd ever seen before. The lady with the trolley hadn't cared when Harry said "One of everything." It was, Harry thought, his first purchase. School stuff didn't count.
"You shouldn't eat sweets, they'll rot your teeth" said the girl tactfully "Have you seen a toad? Only this boy called Neville's lost his?"
Harry looked up from his first ever sweets picnic "Um, no" he said.
"I'm Hermione Granger, what's your name?" said the bossy girl.
"Um… Harry. Harry Potter" said Harry.
"The Harry Potter?" asked Hermione. "The famous one?"
"Um… I dunno." said Harry "My mum was a witch, but I was raised by my aunt and uncle."
"So you haven't read your textbooks?" asked Hermione. "You're in The Decline of the Dark Arts and The Magical History of the Twentieth Century."
"Um… I've never done anything. I'm from Surrey" said Harry, quite honestly.
The girl fled, looking embarrassed.
Harry got his trunk down, dug in and found his textbooks. The History textbook, not either of the ones the girl had mentioned, had a few paragraphs at the very end.
"The Potter family of Godrics hollow, Wales were the last victims of He-Who-shall-Not-Be-Named's reign of terror. After killing the parents (James and Lily Potter, Hogwarts), the infant Harry Potter was attacked, but somehow did not die, and a large explosion blew the wall off their house. Harry Potter was found by family friends, uninjured except for a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. The distinctive robe and a pile of ash was found at the scene.
Combined with the attack on the Longbottoms in Mersey (Frank and Alice, Hogwarts) days later by some of His followers, which left the Longbottoms permanently comatose, and young Neville uninjured, we can conclude that He-Who-shall-Not-Be-Named was somehow defeated in his attack on Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived."
Harry thought about that. This… bad wizard, he'd killed Harry's mum and dad, then somehow died, trying to kill Harry, and that's where his scar came from. That was what Mr Moody had said, in so many words.
Harry clenched his fists. If he ever met any of His Lot, Harry was going to have his revenge.
They'd taken all Harry had… well Harry was going to return the favour.
-==0==-
Some rich blonde kid talking like James Bond had turned up with two big hangers-on and told Harry he was looking for Harry Potter.
"Dudley Dursley" said Harry "Who's this Harry Potter kid?"
The rich boy had left at that. Such an idiot.